Riverside Fire Chief Michael Moore, flanked by firefighters from his city and Rancho Cucamonga at Riverside Fire Station 14, announces Riverside’s participation in Supplying Aid to Victims of Emergency (SAVE), which provides immediate short-term relief to fire and disaster victims.

RIVERSIDE, CA- When first responders answer the call in a fire or disaster, the job doesn’t end when the fire is out. Many times, firefighters wind up comforting families that have suffered a great loss. Firefighters always wish they could do more. Now they can.

Supplying Aid to Victims of Emergency (SAVE)allows local firefighters to give on-the-spot aid to families and individuals who suffer substantial property loss in a fire or a major disaster. Created and funded by the non-profit California Fire Foundation, SAVE provides departments with Mastercard gift cards that can be activated right at the scene.

“As firefighters, we often have the sad duty to be with people on the worst day of their lives,” said Lou Paulson, chair of the California Fire Foundation and a retired Contra Costa firefighter. “By offering SAVE cards to those who have lost so much, firefighters are able to help people take the first step toward rebuilding their lives.”

At a news conference at Riverside’s Canyon City Fire Station # 14, Inland Empire fire departments announced their participation in the unique partnership. The Riverside City, Rancho Cucamonga and San Bernardino City Fire Departments are among 30 departments statewide that have agreed to participate in SAVE. The $100 Mastercard SAVE cards are carried by incident commanders to residential fire and disaster calls. If the occupancy loss is 25 percent or more of total value, a SAVE card can be activated right at the scene.

SAVE cards were issued to 30 California fire departments in late August, following a successful test of the program in the Sacramento area. To date, more than 45 families touched by tragedy have been helped through the program.

SAVE is open to all California fire departments, paid and volunteer, subject to an agreement between the Foundation and employer and employee representatives. The Foundation continues to raise funds and seek additional sponsorships to bring SAVE cards to more communities and, eventually, increase the face value of the cards. Individuals interested in contributing can go to SAVE.cafirefoundation.org.

Shoppers will be lining up at the crack of dawn on “Black Friday” for spectacular deals. What they don’t know is that the best bargains have already been taken – not by other shoppers, but by some of America’s largest corporations.

Walmart, the biggest corporation in America, with revenues of almost half a trillion dollars, gets a $1 billion tax break each year on average by exploiting federal tax loopholes, according to a new report from Americans for Tax Fairness. Taxpayers, even those lined up in the early morning darkness at giant retailers like Walmart, pay the price.

How? First, the more big corporations dodge paying their fair share of taxes, the more American families and small businesses have to make up, or else there is less money available for critical investments, such as rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, improving education and making college more affordable, or finding new medical cures.

When Black Friday shoppers check the prices, they’ll never see these hidden costs of tax avoidance. But when Americans figure out what’s going on they’ll have a bad case of the Black Friday Blues.

The $1 billion Walmart “saves” by ducking its fair share of federal taxes is a low estimate. It doesn’t count the taxes Walmart is avoiding on $21.4 billion in profits held offshore. Walmart has paid nothing to the U.S. Treasury on those earnings because corporations can indefinitely postpone paying U.S. taxes on offshore profits until they are brought back to America.

The retail giant is also working with other large corporations to deeply cut U.S. corporate tax rates. So while American families and small businesses continue to recover from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge corporations making record profits are trying to rewrite the law so they pay much less in taxes.

If these corporations are successful, they will blow a $1.3 trillion hole in the federal budget over the next 10 years. Walmart alone will pocket $720 million a year on average – in addition to the $1 billion it already “saves” from current tax loopholes.

Big companies know that cutting corporate taxes isn’t popular with the public. Americans are outraged that profitable companies like General Electric, Verizon and Boeing – as well as 23 others – paid absolutely nothing in taxes over the past five years, according to the watchdog group Citizens for Tax Justice. Polls show that American families oppose lower corporate tax rates; instead, they want a more equitable tax system in which corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share.

Fighting for an unpopular cause like lowering corporate tax rates could hurt corporate brands with the public. So Walmart and other companies pay large industry coalitions to do the work of waging media campaigns and cajoling members of Congress. Walmart is the only big box retailer that gives to all three of the industry groups that are trying to put a good face on bad policy – the RATE (Reforming America’s Taxes Equitably) Coalition, Alliance for Competitive Taxation and the Business Roundtable.

These organizations decry the 35 percent tax rate corporations are supposed to pay on profits when they know full well that they actually pay far less. Profitable corporations paid U.S. income taxes amounting to just 12.6 percent of worldwide income in 2010, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Walmart itself sends 74 lobbyists to twist arms on Capitol Hill, and tax issues are its No. 1 priority. It has spent $32.6 million lobbying over the past five years. It also tries to buy access to lawmakers by contributing heavily to their campaigns – giving $6.1 million since 2009, disproportionately to members of the two Congressional tax-writing committees.

Walmart wants to convince shoppers to flock to its stores on Black Friday to take advantage of low prices. What it doesn’t want you to know is that those prices come at a high cost of taxes dodged.

If large corporations succeed in slashing corporate tax rates, the effects on our country will be severe. For millions of American families and small businesses it will mean higher taxes, fewer services or a higher national debt. Today’s “Black Friday blues” could turn into a full-blown economic hangover.

Parenting is the most important and rewarding part of life. We have the divine opportunity to teach love, confidence, compassion, discipline and responsibility to another person. We will know what kind of parent we are by how we see our children get along, succeed and interact in the world. When love is the foundation of parenting we raise goal-driven children, rather than entitled children. If we love our children we mentor and discipline them.

6 Tips to Raising a Goal-Driven Child

1) Love Connection:Children who are parenting with a sense of love, security and well-being from the beginning of life will spend the rest of their lives striving to keep that feeling. Children who are valued emotionally, given security, touch, eye contact, time, attention and patience become motivated to repair their sense of well-being when they lose it because it has already been integrated into their sense of self.

2) Self-Worth:Children who feel significant and included in the lives of their parents and whose parents are committed, involved, and supportive in their lives and activities develop a sense of self-worth. They believe in their abilities to succeed, to fail and get back up, to look any man, woman or situation in the face and be proud of who they are.

3.) Use Your Child’s Name: Using your child’s name makes them feel important. Use their name when you are giving compliments, so they take that compliment as being directly related to their value. It tells them they are real and special. Using their name helps soften discipline because you are making them a person, rather than a faulty behavior.

4) Rewards Carry Over: As your child gets older make sure to encourage and compliment their talents and interests. Celebrate them that they are able to do something well. As they get this feeling of gratification it will carry over and help them to be more open to try and achieve new things. Rewards are the beginning of the development of internal motivation creating self-starters.

5) Set Your Children Up for Success: Children assess their value by how they are perceived by others. It will be important to not let your child quit what they start but also not to force them to do what they really don’t want to do. This balance helps your child to learn they must finish what they start but if they aren’t interested long-term is some endeavor, they may choose to stop. This is good for the exploration of their identity and also to learn the value of commitment and passion.

6) Give Your Children Responsibilities: Children need jobs. One of the main ways children develop self-love, motivation, confidence and values is through helping maintain the family home. Giving children household duties helps them experience their worth and it provides them a sense of accomplishment and reward.

Little Life Message:Children need to know that hard work is their way to success. They learn that to achieve their goals responsibilities come first and leisure comes second.

Sherrie Campbell, PhD is a veteran, licensed Psychologist with two decades of clinical training and experience providing counseling and psychotherapy services to residents of Yorba Linda, Irvine, Anaheim, Fullerton and Brea, California. In her private practice, she currently specializes in psychotherapy with adults and teenagers, including marriage and family therapy, grief counselling, childhood trauma, sexual issues, personality disorders, illness and more. She has helped individuals manage their highest high and survive their lowest low—from winning the lottery to the death of a child. Her interactive sessions are as unique and impactful as her new book,Loving Yourself : The Mastery of Being Your Own Person.

She earned her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 2003 and has regularly contributes to numerous publications, including Intent.com, Beliefnet.com, DrLaura.com and Hitched.com. She is also an inspirational speaker, avid writer and proud mother. She can be reached atSherriecampbellphd.com.

Loving Yourself: The Mastery of Being Your Own Personis available onAmazon.comand other fine booksellers.